I was speaking with my multi-talented former business partner Winston Perez who, among other things, is an executive coach. In chatting we talked about when he works with someone new, he asks about their first job.  Not their first job in the industry, but their actual first job. As he explains, that first job is where we learn the most important skill for our business success: Responsibility.  He goes on to say, how we talk about that first experience can be telling about who we are as a professional and how we approach work.

This made me think about LinkedIn and how most of us stop our experience history at college and our first job in “the industry”. Heck, most people in my circle had to retroactively add their early professional experiences because those jobs started, and usually ended, long before LinkedIn (or any social media or sometimes the internet) existed.

But still, I’ve rarely seen anyone go all the way back to their real first job. Maybe they think it is useless information (and maybe it is) or maybe they think it is embarrassing (hint, the majority of people started out at the bottom of some ladder before getting to where they are now).

Me, I was a newspaper delivery boy for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in the late 80s. I learned how to collect money from my customers, and which ones to take extra good care of because they were nice. I also learned that newspapers were heavy to carry and how much that all sucked in the rain and snow, especially at 5:30 am. It was well worth it though because I used the money I made to go to Space Camp in Alabama.

My other first job was working for my parents appliance repair company. I would do odd jobs on the weekend when I was really young, organizing paperwork or taking broken appliances apart to salvage hard to find spare parts. Starting in high school and into college I learned to fix things. I could fix microwaves and air conditioners (I was EPA certified to handle Freon gas at age 18). Later, I did nightly parts deliveries and used the routine of the daily task to optimize my routes around the city, well before Google maps. I also learned a bit about business management by osmosis from my parents too.

Today, I still think of my job as fixing things that are broken and finding more efficient ways to do the rest. It’s the same thing, just a different industry. But that’s the fun for me because I like taking things apart and tinkering. Always have – I guess.

What was your real first job and how did it shape you as a professional?